4 ms·
I think he's a little too focused on the paper-publishing aspect, but that may be just his specific corner of the world, and his experience. It might have been
by supernova87a 6y ago
I think he's a little too focused on the paper-publishing aspect, but that may be just his specific corner of the world, and his experience. It might have been that in his sub-field, that seemed to be the main way to make impact.
I think the point is, if you want to be successful in academia, you need to be producing something theoretical or practical that others can consume and find useful. The medium need not be papers. It could be:
-- standards
-- methodologies
-- prototypes
-- libraries of code, manuals of protocols
even more practical things:
-- convening people on a topic with authority
-- writing popular works to publicize the field
-- building a scientific facility
-- even TV shows or blog posts
You will find professors at universities who do a whole variety of these kinds of things, not just publish research papers.
(and as they get more senior, they often find more interesting outlets for their work, if they're innovative)
But you have to make something that others (in the scientific or industrial or popular community) can consume. All the paper counts in the world will not help, or make you satisfied, if they're just churned out for the goal of increasing your H-index but don't actually contain something wanted by others. It usually doesn't work as an approach.
If you can't do any of these, then you are probably better off taking a normal job. The incentives of academia will not align with your talents.
Personally, for example, I found that the things I was good at publishing or sharing with others wasn't groundbreaking novel research. So I went where that was valued, and have been happier since.
- CannoloBlahnik 6y agoAre you in academia? Papers are the standard metric of success for tenure in science. At research universities, it's most of the basis for tenure.
- Balgair 6y agoIt depends on the field, but yes. Many optics researchers really only do presentations and they 'count' as paper publications. The pressure is still intense though.
- CannoloBlahnik 6y agoSome areas focus on conference publications rather than journal publications—in optics is there no conference publication, just the presentation?
- Balgair 6y agoOh man, yes, you are correct. My brain was somewhere else. My bad.
- Grakel 6y agoTheatre professor here! My professional productions are expected to be my entire body of research toward tenure.
- tom_mellior 6y agoThe author is already tenured in France and is mostly arguing that they need to "publish or perish" to get their PhD students to graduate. My experience in academic computer science in France (though not in the author's specific subfield) is that many many very good PhD students graduate with one or two conference papers published, and nobody minds, and they go on to good positions after that. I agree with the grandparent that the author might be overstating the problem a bit, in their very specific context. In other places, sure, students have some dumb quota to fulfill. But putting this front and center as the argument for leaving a tenured job in France... doesn't agree with what I've seen.
- skosuri 6y agoAgreed with this. One big thing that is missing here is teaching. If you are an amazing teacher, things will be much better for you longer term. You will also enjoy the job a lot more.